Pat Shurmur builds his players up plenty, they say, but he also coaches them hard when it’s called for, and so does his staff.

And yet the Giants (5-8) have not wilted when faced with harsh and constructive criticism. In fact, the opposite has happened: they’ve won four of five and ascended entering Sunday’s game against the Tennessee Titans (7-6) to keep their narrow playoffs alive.

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And one reason, according to several players, is that Shurmur and his staff have garnered respect by treating everyone equally across the board.

Star players and undrafted free agents are praised and criticized with the same intensity, intent and detail. The coaches are consistent in their approach and methods, whether the team wins or loses, or a player excels or struggles. And everyone is held to the same standard.

“Two things I think are really difficult as a player,” left tackle Nate Solder began on Friday. “If the way that a coach handles you and treats you is based off your performance, your life gets really like this (Solder moves his hand up and down). Your emotions and everything get real (up and down). If a coach can just approach everything with a real objective eye — tell you when you’re doing wrong, tell you when you’re doing well, and be consistently consistent — then you can really see your performance start to go like this (Solder angles his hand upward).

“When it’s always up and down, up and down — we love you, we hate you, we love you, we hate you — it’s just a roller coaster and takes a real toll on players and hurts relationships,” Solder added. “And I would say that about our coaching staff, is they’re very consistent in their approach, they’re very consistent that if something’s wrong, it’s wrong. If something’s right, it’s right. It’s not trying to control you or manipulate you or anything like that. It’s just honest and forthright.”

Some players say they’ve been on other teams before where the dynamic was much different and less constructive, which makes this Giants staff refreshing by comparison.

Saquon Barkley, who is both a rookie and a star player, said he hasn’t ever had a coaching staff that did play favorites. But he appreciates Shurmur’s and his staff’s ability to treat everyone equally.

"It’s not trying to control you or manipulate you or anything like that. It’s just honest and forthright.”

Nate Solder on Pat Shurmur

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“I just think it’s the right thing to do, and I think they know that’s the right thing to do, and that’s the way it should be,” Barkley said Friday. “I think it’s an important way to do it because it puts everything in perspective that at the end of the day we’re a team. And no matter who you are — even if you get paid more than this guy or score more touchdowns than that guy — we’re all equal, we’re all the same, and we all get coached up the same.”

Barkley also shook his head when asked if it can be more difficult to take hard coaching as a star player who might be coming off a spectacular game and recognize himself as a major part of a team’s success.

“No. It’s not. It’s the same,” Barkley said. “I like constructive criticism. It helps you get better. That’s why you have a coach and that’s why you’re a player. A coach is there to criticize you when need be and tell you when you are doing good things, too. That’s how my coach was in college, and I’m very used to that, and it’s the same thing here.”

Shurmur sets his tone even above the level of individual players, too. As he said on Nov. 12, he doesn’t believe in Victory Mondays, or giving the team the day off after a win, “because you have to settle all debts … And if you don’t make corrections in a real structured way, I think you set yourself back.”

Pat Shurmur and QB Eli Manning. (Elsa / Getty Images)

His defensive coordinator James Bettcher coaches with an intense attention to detail. That side of the ball drills players hard but fairly, too. Defensive backs coach Lou Anarumo even said Friday that one of the strengths of outside starting corner B.W. Webb, a journeyman who has impressed this season, is that he “takes hard coaching.”

Shurmur said in November that as an athlete himself, he has “taken a lot of punches and thrown a lot of punches,” so he knows from experience that players must “just keep moving” in the right direction to constantly correct and improve. He drops the ego, and expects everyone else to do the same.

And it’s all for the betterment of the team. And so far this second half of the season, that’s been the case.

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“(The attitude is) you’re a person first and that’s great, and then it’s, ‘OK this is football, let’s work on how we can improve,” Solder said. “So that’s something I appreciate.”

DAVIS CHALLENGES THE RABBIT

Jenkins, 30, the Giants’ top corner, said of Davis, the Titans’ No. 1 receiver: “Corey Davis? What number is he?” When told No. 84, Jenkins said: “Oh. He aite. I mean, he a receiver. Just gonna go out there and play football.”

Davis, 23, the Titans’ fifth overall pick in 2017, then fired back Friday per WSMV in Nashville:

“I actually thought (Jenkins not knowing Davis) was funny. No hard feelings. He probably really doesn’t know who I am. At the end of the day he’s going to find out.”